I’m a regular user of Linux systems but apart from a couple of test Ubuntu installs many years ago they’ve always been containers or VMs with no DE which I can throw away when I break them. The Steam Deck showcasing how far Wine/Proton has come combined with Windows being Windows has given me the push; I’ve made a Mint live USB and it’s running beautifully on my desktop. I come to you, the masters, with questions before I hit install:
- What do you recommend I do about disk partitions? I’m keeping a Windows install for the few things that demand it, does Windows still occasionally destroy Linux partitions? Do I need separate partitions for data and OS? Is it straightforward to add additional distros as new partitions or is that asking for trouble?
- Is disk encryption straightforward? And is that likely to upset the Windows partition?
- Is cloud storage sync straightforward? It’s my off-site backup solution on Android and Windows (using Cryptomator with Dropbox, Google Drive, etc) but I don’t think that many providers have Linux clients. Is something like rclone recommended?
- Should I just use apt to install software? I know there’s some kind of graphical package manager (synaptic?), does that use apt under the covers or is it separate? Is it recommended to install something like Flathub too?
- Any other pearls of wisdom? How do I keep everything tidy? Any warnings about what not to do? Should I use a particular terminal emulator or Firefox fork?
I did not, had no idea about it. Unfortunately the mouse started to fall apart a bit and Logitech has very few MMO mice meeting my needs, so I decided to switch to Razer Naga Pro V2. I haven’t tried configuring it on Linux yet, as I’m pretty sure the major supporting app doesn’t have V2 support yet.
I might actually contribute back based on the steps listed in the open issue for it. It just requires time, effort, and motivation I don’t have right now.
